Incorporating Muskeg Soil Shear Strength Into Buoyancy Control Design

Author(s):  
Gordon R. Simmonds ◽  
Lance N. Thomas

For the past four years, NOVA Gas Transmission Ltd. (NGTL) has included the backfill shear strength in buoyancy control design for natural gas pipelines built and operated in muskeg soil laden terrain. Incorporation of muskeg soil shear strength has resulted in major cost reductions. In typical muskeg soil laden terrain, the weighting requirement for NPS 4 and smaller pipelines has been eliminated, while the need for weighting of larger pipelines has been significantly reduced. Traditionally, muskeg soil shear strength has not been considered due to an absence of adequate theoretical and performance data. NGTL has constructed a series of laboratory and field studies in an attempt to quantify the contribution of “muskeg soil shear strength.” The results of this research program, when combined with a rudimentary field investigation, are part of NGTL’s current buoyancy control design methodology for pipelines traversing muskeg soil laden terrain. This paper presents a practical methodology used by NGTL for buoyancy control. Design examples are provided to calculate two design components; the maximum tolerable muskeg depth and optimum weight spacing. The paper concludes with a discussion of construction and operational considerations which influence buoyancy control design.

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 685-707 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amna Batool ◽  
Farid Menaa ◽  
Bushra Uzair ◽  
Barkat Ali Khan ◽  
Bouzid Menaa

: The pace at which nanotheranostic technology for human disease is evolving has accelerated exponentially over the past five years. Nanotechnology is committed to utilizing the intrinsic properties of materials and structures at submicroscopic-scale measures. Indeed, there is generally a profound influence of reducing physical dimensions of particulates and devices on their physico-chemical characteristics, biological properties, and performance. The exploration of nature’s components to work effectively as nanoscaffolds or nanodevices represents a tremendous and growing interest in medicine for various applications (e.g., biosensing, tunable control and targeted drug release, tissue engineering). Several nanotheranostic approaches (i.e., diagnostic plus therapeutic using nanoscale) conferring unique features are constantly progressing and overcoming all the limitations of conventional medicines including specificity, efficacy, solubility, sensitivity, biodegradability, biocompatibility, stability, interactions at subcellular levels. : This review introduces two major aspects of nanotechnology as an innovative and challenging theranostic strategy or solution: (i) the most intriguing (bare and functionalized) nanomaterials with their respective advantages and drawbacks; (ii) the current and promising multifunctional “smart” nanodevices.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-25
Author(s):  
Karolina Diallo

Pupil with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Over the past twenty years childhood OCD has received more attention than any other anxiety disorder that occurs in the childhood. The increasing interest and research in this area have led to increasing number of diagnoses of OCD in children and adolescents, which affects both specialists and teachers. Depending on the severity of symptoms OCD has a detrimental effect upon child's school performance, which can lead almost to the impossibility to concentrate on school and associated duties. This article is devoted to the obsessive-compulsive disorder and its specifics in children, focusing on the impact of this disorder on behaviour, experience and performance of the child in the school environment. It mentions how important is the role of the teacher in whose class the pupil with this diagnosis is and it points out that it is necessary to increase teachers' competence to identify children with OCD symptoms, to take the disease into the account, to adapt the course of teaching and to introduce such measures that could help children reduce the anxiety and maintain (or increase) the school performance within and in accordance with the school regulations and curriculum.


Author(s):  
Ahmed Khalil ◽  
Nicolas Fezans

AbstractGust load alleviation functions are mainly designed for two objectives: first, alleviating the structural loads resulting from turbulence or gust encounter, and hence reducing the structural fatigue and/or weight; and second, enhancing the ride qualities, and hence the passengers’ comfort. Whilst load alleviation functions can improve both aspects, the designer will still need to make design trade-offs between these two objectives and also between various types and locations of the structural loads. The possible emergence of affordable and reliable remote wind sensor techniques (e.g., Doppler LIDAR) in the future leads to considering new types of load alleviation functions as these sensors would permit anticipating the near future gusts and other types of turbulence. In this paper, we propose a preview control design methodology for the design of a load alleviation function with such anticipation capabilities, based on recent advancements on discrete-time reduced-order multi-channel $$H_\infty $$ H ∞ techniques. The methodology is illustrated on the DLR Discus-2c flexible sailplane model.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
Kristina C. Backer ◽  
Heather Bortfeld

A debate over the past decade has focused on the so-called bilingual advantage—the idea that bilingual and multilingual individuals have enhanced domain-general executive functions, relative to monolinguals, due to competition-induced monitoring of both processing and representation from the task-irrelevant language(s). In this commentary, we consider a recent study by Pot, Keijzer, and de Bot (2018), which focused on the relationship between individual differences in language usage and performance on an executive function task among multilingual older adults. We discuss their approach and findings in light of a more general movement towards embracing complexity in this domain of research, including individuals’ sociocultural context and position in the lifespan. The field increasingly considers interactions between bilingualism/multilingualism and cognition, employing measures of language use well beyond the early dichotomous perspectives on language background. Moreover, new measures of bilingualism and analytical approaches are helping researchers interrogate the complexities of specific processing issues. Indeed, our review of the bilingualism/multilingualism literature confirms the increased appreciation researchers have for the range of factors—beyond whether someone speaks one, two, or more languages—that impact specific cognitive processes. Here, we highlight some of the most salient of these, and incorporate suggestions for a way forward that likewise encompasses neural perspectives on the topic.


Author(s):  
Andrew Lees ◽  
Michael Dobie

Polymer geogrid reinforced soil retaining walls have become commonplace, with routine design generally carried out by limiting equilibrium methods. Finite element analysis (FEA) is becoming more widely used to assess the likely deformation behavior of these structures, although in many cases such analyses over-predict deformation compared with monitored structures. Back-analysis of unit tests and instrumented walls improves the techniques and models used in FEA to represent the soil fill, reinforcement and composite behavior caused by the stabilization effect of the geogrid apertures on the soil particles. This composite behavior is most representatively modeled as enhanced soil shear strength. The back-analysis of two test cases provides valuable insight into the benefits of this approach. In the first case, a unit cell was set up such that one side could yield thereby reaching the active earth pressure state. Using FEA a test without geogrid was modeled to help establish appropriate soil parameters. These parameters were then used to back-analyze a test with geogrid present. Simply using the tensile properties of the geogrid over-predicted the yield pressure but using an enhanced soil shear strength gave a satisfactory comparison with the measured result. In the second case a trial retaining wall was back-analyzed to investigate both deformation and failure, the failure induced by cutting the geogrid after construction using heated wires. The closest fit to the actual deformation and failure behavior was provided by using enhanced fill shear strength.


2014 ◽  
Vol 635-637 ◽  
pp. 750-754
Author(s):  
Peng Hu ◽  
Qing Li ◽  
Yi Wei Xu ◽  
Nan Ying Shentu ◽  
Quan Yuan Peng

Expound the importance of soil shear strength measurement at mudslide hidden point to release the loss caused by the disaster, explain the relationship between shear wave velocity, moisture content and shear strength, design the shear strength monitoring system combining the shear wave velocity measured by Piezoelectric bender elements and moisture content.


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